


Appetite

by vwright



Category: Ylvis
Genre: M/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-26 01:56:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1670429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vwright/pseuds/vwright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Too long alone with each other, things can begin to stir. It's risky enough when they're surrounded by crew, their own people, but when they're off alone where no one knows them it becomes downright dangerous. UPDATE: posting unfinished drafts bc I'm not revisiting this</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - Norway

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The events, characters, and entities depicted in this work are fictional. Any resemblance or similarity to any actual events, entities, or persons, whether living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

It was easy to write it off like they were sick of each other, but really it was more that they were sick with each other. More than a few days in close proximity and Vegard could feel it itching under his skin, like he was breaking out in hives all over. The uncomfortable, alluring tension settled in his limbs and made him fidget like he had tetanus. There was a clear and careful border in his brain delineating his love for his brother and his love for his family. Compartmentalized, he could appease the side of himself that yearned for normalcy and control the side that threatened to rebel against it. When he was with Bård for too long, the other side threatened to claim manifest destiny and colonize every inch of his mind until there was nothing left but all-consuming infatuation with his brother. There was the familiar fever that would creep down his neck and across his chest at the sight of him. Vegard’s blood would boil and he’d shiver all at once, mind clouded and foggy with the one thing he felt could save him. He knew it couldn’t. With practice and discipline, Vegard was able to subdue the revolt that conspired in his brother’s presence.  

Over time he became aware that they were both infected; it wasn’t too hard to figure out. When Bård tried to broach the subject, one drunken evening on their national tour, he had the demeanor of a child admitting they’d done something wrong. There was guilt all over his face, this pleading look for forgiveness. Vegard didn’t know how Bård could have missed the reciprocal looks he had given him long ago. 

"I can’t be around you, I just—god I’m fucking disgusting." Bård looked into his lap, the corners of his mouth veering down and his fingers tightening around the sweaty neck of his beer bottle.

"I know, Bård. It’s—"

"No, you don’t understand, Vegard.  _I can’t be trusted around you_ , I feel—”

"Yes, I do, Bård. I know." The finality in his tone caused Bård to raise his eyes to him. He was holding his breath. "I can’t be around you either." Vegard turned his gaze ahead of him, staring at shelves of bottles across the bar. His fingertip grazed the edge of his glass but he couldn’t bring himself to raise it to his lips. 

From the corner of his eyes, he could see Bård still staring. Vegard dared an insecure look at his brother. His face had twisted into something different than fear, but not quite anger. 

"So, you," Bård started, but stumbled on his words. "So that’s all you—"

"We just need to go home Bård. You need to see your kids. We need to see our families."

It seemed like his words slapped some sanity back into his brother. Bård turned to face the bar, body rigid as he took a deep breath.

"You’re right," Bård said. "I just, I need to see them soon. I have to—I have to call. I have to call her…" Bård’s words served to reassure himself, Vegard knew. He listened as Bård pieced together a solution, a treatment plan to their looming illness. Go home. Talk less. Put it away.

"It’ll be okay, Bård. We’ll be fine." Vegard sipped his glass as his brother got up from the bar and walked to the exit. His phone was already at his ear.

When the tour was over they each went on extended vacations with their families. When they returned to work, they knew better than to fuel the fire by speaking about it. 

It was like being bitten by a rabid animal. You knew you were going to turn—do terrible, hurtful things that you couldn’t control. He thought that as long as they didn’t succumb to the madness that brimmed they could be okay. If they let the urges take hold for even a second, then it would be over. People are keen to lose their love for something gone mad—they’d rather kill it, as it had become something else.  _Put it out of its misery_ , as they’d say. He didn’t know what it would be like to let the crazy slip in and conquer his whole being. He didn’t know if it would be miserable, but he did know that his life now was something like a dulled, distracted version of it. Regardless, it was one he could live with. He could deal with the shame and hatred of the world, but knowing people would think that of his brother was more than he could bear. So for both of them, they withheld. It’s not that he didn’t love his family, the love just didn’t have an appetite.  


	2. Los Angeles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So just to clarify each chapter was supposed to be another stop while they tour around the world, and also examining another symptom of their "sickness" for each other I guess. The last one has like nothing in it but imma publish it anyway

My brother and I haven't _really_ been alone with one another in 13 years. And I think it's probably a good thing. Usually I have a hard time remembering what it was even like before, but then sometimes I'll get a flash of it--when we're waiting at the gate at an airport, when someone steps out of the room during a writer's session, if we share a cab on the way to an event--and it kind of knocks me off my feet. It's not like choosing something else was necessarily a conscious decision, but when I pursued the relationships that were offered and he didn't stop me, it sent a message. I think we both knew we were better off, if we wanted normal lives. Not that we ever did anything really, that was so bad. It was more like an assumption that we were both thinking the same, strange thing. Long term, it probably even prevented a fracture that would have eventually split us apart completely, forever. It's definitely the right thing to do. I love my family. 

My brother takes my insides and turns them out; I can't be around him and not want to dive right into him to feel like I'm whole, safe again.

 

 

 

 

 

Symptom #1: Proximity

 

Perhaps it was the surreal atmosphere, or the euphoric turn of events that brought on a new harsh wave of desire for Vegard. Los Angeles was a city they didn't particularly enjoy going to, not after a few years earlier when days of cold meetings, callous landscape, and dismissive people led to the brothers leaving the city disenchanted but motivated nonetheless. 

There they were again, on the other side of things, on the other side of the phone answering and ignoring calls from entertainment outlets wanting just a moment of _their_ time for a change. It was September, but still warm, dry, and windy. The weather was something they paid little mind to, considering they spent most of their time in air conditioned hotel rooms, offices, green rooms, and studios all day. When they did happen to linger outside in the warmth, Norwegian journalists saw their golden opportunity to capitalize on their national relevance and ask the brothers the same questions again and again. This required them to stand beside one another, talk for one another, consider answers on the spot without a script or rehearsal to speak of. Not that it was a problem, knowing the other's mind was never a problem.  

In one way, Vegard was lucky that his affliction was not unique--or perhaps it was genetic--as Bård seemed to struggle just as badly. Stood beside his older brother, Bård drilled his gaze onto Vegard's face each time he opened his mouth. Over the years Vegard learned to master his peripheral vision to savor moments like this. Back then they were less frequent and more thrilling; now they were constant and threatening, like they begged for Vegard to turn toward him, or keep his eyes looking far far away for fear of whatever he may find looking back. 

He was trying to remember the English word to describe something, a showbiz term they'd learned along the way, with the perky young blonde interviewer opposite them waiting expectantly with a smile. She was exactly Bård's type. Thin, short, cute little giggle, the type of girl that if they were back home Bård would stand a little too close to, look right in her eyes when he spoke to her, maybe graze his hand on her arm-- His sputtering was interrupted by Bård finishing his sentence for him. Vegard spared a look at his brother, whose gaze was locked on the interviewer before them. A gentle knock to the shoulder came moments after Vegard turned away, Bård's leather-clad arm connecting with his brother's denim one. The muscles in his arm tensed and froze as a pulse of something ricocheted through his chest. He held onto the sensation of contact, momentarily musing on how it was too hot really for Bård to be wearing that kind of jacket. If he looked over just then, he would probably see a light sheen of sweat on his brother's forehead, his hair flattened to his skin; when he did look over, he found his brother staring back, a small smile on his lips for something Vegard had said. Their eyes met for less than half a second, any longer and Vegard wouldn't have been able to answer the questions probably. Luckily, his mind already well practiced in thinking one thing while doing another, he was able to pay attention to the interviewer while also doing everything in his power to keep that smile on Bård's face. With a little effort, it worked.

Bård's hair seemed blonder here, Vegard noted. It reminded him of when they were young and spent their days hiding from the blazing African sun. Each time they would return to Norway, the gold seemed to dull a little, as did their interest with one another. Vegard mourned a little for how innocent that interest used to be, how a part of him wished he could still touch his brother and only want his attention, instead of his arms around his waist.    


	3. New York

One time, when it was really bad, I started getting insecure and doubting everything I previously assumed about our relationship. It was like my mind was playing a trick on me, that every time I felt something it was new, and different, instead of the same thing we'd come to live with since we were teens. I couldn't look at him and feel anything else, but he looked exactly the same--unaffected. Which made me think maybe I'd always been crazy. Maybe I'd always been alone. I kept wondering if this was what schizophrenics felt like, constantly doubting the shit that you absolutely knew was real, was suddenly maybe completely insane, and dangerous. I didn't even know what I wanted, or, well, I did, but I don't know how I thought I would go about getting it, or resolving the issue in any way. I worked myself up to being pretty convinced he was going to hit me, or strangle me, or walk off from our tour and leave me to explain to everyone why it fell apart. That's why I chose a public place to tell him--a bar--using some liquid courage to go through with it. My voice was shaking the whole time and he wouldn't look at me. I just told him the truth, basically, but as vaguely as possible. He cut me off at some point and told me he knew what I was talking about, and that it was the same for him. It was relieving, in a way, but it also felt like a death sentence. Because if we both felt it then there was no end, there was no way I could ever get over it. No matter what decisions we made it would always be there, hiding under the surface. He told me to call my wife, so I went outside and talked to her for a while. I remember thinking that it was really nice, comforting, to hear her voice and talk to my kids. I missed them. When I got back inside I saw my brother laughing with one of the guys in the band and it was like being sucked back into a riptide. I went back outside to stand in the snow for a while, but he didn't come looking for me. 

 

 

 

 

Symptom #2: Touching

 

There was a backlash of awareness; an overcompensation for the troubling thoughts that plagued them each day. Skype calls home were frequent, as were mentions of their families in nearly every interview they gave. Vegard noticed it first, that somehow Bård would work in a mention of his kids or his life back home in some regard; it left a bitter taste in Vegard's mouth that he tried to bite back. After all, he was in the same position and surely wouldn't want Bård to be thinking any jealous or possessive thoughts about him and his own family. That's when it dawned on him that jealousy was the perfect word to describe the mounting feelings in his chest. The irritation spread through the capillaries in his face, shooting up his ears and across his cheeks at every mention of Bård's true commitment; the hot blush incriminating him and demonstrating just how bad things had got.

Vegard neatly kept this underlying displeasure at bay, perhaps only able to harness it due to Bård's new unconscious actions. It was the touching. Little things: calm like placing a hand on his arm before pointing something out, or more aggressive like shoving him while walking down a hallway for seemingly no reason at all. Vegard took it all without a word either way. He remembered times past when Bård acted like this, the little brother suddenly turned tactile after approximately 8 days away from home. They were traveling Norway, meeting strangers, and Vegard became Bård's ally in normalcy against the tiresome circus of filming. Vegard was very aware of how abnormal it was for Bård to reach out that much. Most times Bård shied away from his brother's touch, maybe an uncomfortable smile to accompany it but nothing more. Now Bård constantly initiated, subconsciously or not, and Vegard tried his very best to ignore the urge to memorize and catalog each minute graze. Though if he were being honest, his very best while abroad was less than half of his efforts at home. He wondered how well Bård was demonstrating his restraint, how well he knew what he was doing and how fast it was making his older brother slip.

 

 

 

 

Bård's eyes followed their familiar path from his eyes to lips and back again--the looks hadn't stopped in the meantime. If anything they were getting worse, and Vegard could only imagine how telling his own eyes were when he either stared or pointedly looked away.   


	4. London

At some point I just stopped caring so much. I figured there wasn't much use to be so anxious about it, because at home, we were relatively safe. I didn't feel so guilty or crushed if I got to go home at the end of the day. It seemed like he felt the same way too, so I started to ease up. It was pretty comfortable for a while. Then I discovered something, when we were on stage together, or on camera, _watched_ , so to speak. There's a unique environment then where we can be placed in a context of "together." We're asked questions as pair, discussed as a pair--for all intents and purposes we are one entity. I started noticing maybe a little too late how that realization was affecting me. I'd look back on our TV appearances and notice the way I watched him; I was practically glowing or blushing when we made eye contact. I looked pretty stupid, especially since my brother seemed so good at keeping it together. No one noticed anything though, to my surprise. So I started testing it, testing him. I would make it my mission, a little game to spice up the tedious media circus we were so often subjected to. I'd see how long it took, how far I had to go before I could tell I was flustering him. I don't think other people saw, but I knew immediately the moment his control started slipping. I would wear clothes I knew he liked, wear his clothes sometimes, which seemed to make him really happy for some reason. It wasn't much, but if I could get his stare to linger, pause his speech for just a second when he was answering a question, it was a job well done. It was fun for me anyway, and I think he was too scared to say anything to me about it, as it could just be in his head. I probably shouldn't have gotten as much enjoyment as I did out of driving him crazy like that, but I wanted him to feel it. It wasn't fair that I had to be alone with it all the time. I wanted him to feel on edge, to put him there, like maybe if I asked him to jump off the cliff he would.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Symptom #3: Kindness


	5. Hong Kong

Prognosis:

Mortality Rate:


End file.
